Windows Phone market share down to 2.5 percent

Microsoft's share of the smartphone market with Windows Phone has dropped to 2.5 percent, according to a new report.

Research company IDC recently released its quarterly report on the smartphone market, and found that Microsoft's platform had slipped even further behind Android and iOS.

Apparently, Q2 Windows Phone handset sales dropped 9.4 percent compared to the same period last year. The result is that Windows Phone, despite remaining the third biggest smartphone platform, accounts for just 2.5 percent of the market.

Part of the problem is that Windows Phone is now effectively a one-manufacturer smartphone platform - especially since Microsoft made that one manufacturer (Nokia) its in-house team. Rumours of a new HTC-produced Windows Phone handset may spark hope, but Microsoft would have hoped for far more support from smartphone manufacturers.

Contrasting sharply with that, Android is way out in the lead with a whopping 84.7 percent share of the smartphone market. Meanwhile Apple is comfortably in second with 11.7 percent market share, although this marks a drop from 13 percent last year.

In case you were wondering, BlackBerry is the fourth biggest single smartphone platform with 0.5 percent market share, while those anonymous "others" make up the remaining 0.6 percent.

Overall, it appears to have been a healthy quarter for smartphone sales, with 301.3 million units shifted. That marks the first time more than 300 million smartphones have been sold in a quarter.

Having said that, it should be noted that only the top two players, Android and iOS, recorded year-on-year growth. It seems the rest - including Microsoft's Windows Phone platform - are struggling to make a living.